Too Simple a Word
by Kristine
Summary: On the eve of Joey’s return for Thanksgiving, Rachel finds herself on the edge of the forbidden. She must decide whether to lengthen her stolen moment, or return to her half-life.
1. Prologue

_Too Simple a Word_

_Prologue_

_PG_

_November, 2006. On the eve of Joey's return for Thanksgiving, Rachel and Chandler find themselves on the edge of the forbidden. They must decide whether to lengthen their stolen moment, or return to their half-lives._

_Disclaimer: It's hard to think of characters as "property" in any tangible way, but in any case, they're not mine. Disclaimer goes for all chapters attached to this story._

Prologue. From Ross' point of view.

November, 2009.

Standing there at the window watching melon moon shadows dance to their pale silver song in the places the streetlamps did not reach, he felt more and more like a man who knew everything and understood nothing.

He knew every line of her face, every fleck of gold in her eyes, all the textures of her skin . . . how his erupted in heat at her touch. He knew her favorite song, the way she looked at herself in mirrors, the sound of her hum, languid, homey, and always slightly out of tune, after she read Emma a chapter out of her bedtime book. He knew the way she smelled when she was weary, like warmed buttermilk in a gently rounded, cream-colored mug.

But _of_ her, he understood nothing.

He knew he loved her, but could not understand why, or even if he had tagged what he felt for her with the right word. "Love" seemed too simple a word for Rachel's complexity. But he did. He just . . . . loved her. And he always, always had, ever since he could remember loving anything at all. It was, if he had to chose a word, _fate_, the crazy underpinnings of a destiny he used to think was out of reach and that he now held dear, not unlike the way a child holds in his mittened hand the first perfect snowflake of winter, in awe that the crystals actually form the shapes mirrored in the flimsy paper cut-out kind that cover the refrigerator in a cascade of faded blue.

He looked at her, curled up on the couch fast asleep, her face softer, more peaceful, and somehow more like itself than it ever looked when she was awake, a blanket floating just beneath the place where her chin rested on her chest, her honey hair spilling unguarded onto the green pillow beneath her. A wisp of it was in her face, and her breath sent it curling skyward at sleep-measured intervals.

In sleep she seemed to return to herself, and even now, after all that had passed between them, he had the urge to wake her gently, kissing her temple, the lids of her eyes, the rise of her lips, and in doing so awaken also her inner workings, the heave and sigh of her unstated life, her private minutes that ticked by even as she went about her day at work, as she paid her cab fare, and those moments when she would slip briefly out of the tide of the conversation and hover inside herself, as if she were pressing her ear against her heart and listening to its secrets.

After their fight he had tried to take the couch, but she resisted, leveling his mumbled protests with a fiery glare, her finger pointing him to the bedroom. On top of the argument she had stacked a new guilt, and now he could not find enough peace to sleep off the exhaustion of their whispered bickering or the knowledge that Emma had long since slipped into her bedroom and under her covers, trying to shrug off her growing weariness at these weekly spats. He couldn't even pinpoint when they'd started, just that they were small and defiant, and left the apartment with a cool that the out-of-date heating system couldn't compete with.

So there he stood propped up against the window, his tie still knotted and his boots starting to feel too heavy and too hot for his feet. But somehow, standing rigidly awake at the window was better for his conscience than enjoying butter-soft sheets, fluffy blankets, and the scent that Rachel leaves behind on her pillows.

Again he watched the moon shadows and let a long sigh slowly escape from his lips. It was time now to admit, if only to himself, what deep down he had known all along. It was time to admit a short-coming, a defeat, a fault created and maintained only by himself . . . .

Knowledge, for all its blessings, does not bestow understanding on its keeper.

It was the biggest joke of all. The person he loved the most in the world was the one person he could not understand, the one person it seemed he could not make happy. He wondered if she felt the same way.

Suddenly it had all become clear. All this time he had thought that at the heart of his unhappiness were the mistakes of others . . . .

Perhaps. . . . Perhaps it was better this way. Perhaps it was better than pretending that those moments of rare joy that peeked shyly from amid the everydayness of their lives actually strung together to form something meaningful, something resembling an overall happiness. . . .

Perhaps it was better than pretending that the two of them alone was just as potent a thing as the six of them together used to be, all those months ago. . . .

Outside, the trees creaked and the wind lent its music to the November leaves. Softly, as if it had waited with prolonged hesitancy and at last decided it wanted to be heard, a branch began a tap-tap-tap beat on the window, the drum of irregular downtown jazz.

He leaned his forehead against the window pane, expecting its coolness to bring him back to reason. _There has to be something else, _he thought_, There has to be truths about us we yet to uncover. There has to be more than this._

Through the window he could see both the street far below, the cars lining its sides looking small and toy-like, and the reflected image of Rachel asleep on the couch before his breath fogged the glass and neither was visible at all anymore. Breath came upon breath, and before reason found its foothold he had risen, his feet finding their way into boots, his arms shrugging into a wool coat the November wind couldn't get through.

The routine of it was oddly familiar, though this was the first time it had happened. It seemed he had lived this moment in a dream. And as he grabbed his scarf from the back of the couch he somehow knew this would not be the last time. He could see himself in August performing this now rehearsed escape, still not knowing what exactly it was he was fleeing but nonetheless finding himself descending into a 2am thunderstorm, alive and giddy and laughing as warm rain fell in fat drops to wash the streets.

At the door he turned to look at her once more, promising himself he would be back before the light of day broke in wide, bright shards over the city and lives had to start all over again. He promised himself she wouldn't have to know he had left. She wouldn't have to know what the image of him leaving looked like, the brown of his eyes deeper, his cheeks flushed with embarrassed excitement, his scarf plummeting red and trembling down the length of his coat, his hand on the doorknob. She wouldn't have to know he'd tiptoed out the door with his breath held, escaping to the beauty and anonymity of lamp-lit streets and moon shadows.

Outside, the branch continued its slow jazz.

She wouldn't have to know he had needed to escape.

_Please leave a review! (That's my way of saying I'm not exactly going to bother to update if there's too little interest from you guys.)_


	2. Let There Be Snow

Too Simple a Word

Chapter 1: Let There Be Snow

_November, 2006. On the eve of Joey's return for Thanksgiving, Rachel finds herself on the edge of the forbidden. She must decide whether to lengthen their stolen moment, or return to their half-lives._

Note: Please be aware of dates attached to chapters; the prologue takes place much later than the rest of the chapters.

November 2007.

The sky is a pearly, impassive grey, the kind that makes the promise of snow and then delivers spectacularly. It is late November, just days before Thanksgiving, but the weather is more like mid-January, when a thin sheet of ice freezes puddles into place and New Yorkers wear fabulously long coats, half running to destinations whose awnings and doorways glint with tiny icicles. The only visible signs it is still fall are the sparse leaves that cling to the trees along Fifth Avenue tremble in the wind as if shamelessly frightened. At the curb, Rachel hovers inside the warmth of her cab for a moment before the driver, giving her a meaningful glare, says in Brooklyn parlance, " 59th and 5th. You gettin' out, lady, or you want me to keep the meter runnin'?"

Rachel shakes her head and reaches into her purse for a some bills, handing them to the cabbie. "Thanks," she says, stuffing her hands unceremoniously into gloves and reaching for the door handle.

"Hey," he says, his voice softening as he looks at the two crisp bills in his hand, "bundle up today; there's snow in those clouds."

Rachel throws him a smile and, steeling herself for the blast of cold about to reach her from the street, pushes the cab door open. It is just as cold as she imagined; the wind, in its pursuit of those last trembling leaves, stings her cheeks and nose a bright, rosy pink. Her breath rises like a frozen song in front of her before evaporating into the air, and the world seems to burst open around her, the cold getting inside crevices of her coat and scarf until she feels completely, even divinely alive. Head bowed against the winter air, she plunges through midtown's crowd, nearly jogging the last half-block to tug the vestibule door of the Ralph Lauren building open.

It was here that nearly a week ago she somewhat randomly ran into Chandler while coming home from work. It had been over a month since she'd seen him last, and over a year since she'd bumped into him on 5th Avenue, something that used to occur so often that they'd taken to calling each other if they were running late and couldn't share a cab downtown. They'd ride together, bumping along streets and being hurled backward and forward as the cab lurched in traffic. There they would ride together, sharing cab fare and office stories until they arrived in their little neighborhood in lower Manhattan.

This was before what Rachel now referred to as _That Year_, the year that she and Ross got back together, the year Phoebe got married, the year the twins came, the year that Chandler and Monica moved out of the city and the term "Apartment 20" lost all of its charm, and the year Joey moved away and the term "Apartment 19" likewise lost all of _its_ charm. He hadn't come back to New York since his departure nearly three years ago. But even this far from California, there are reminders, flickers of memory bright and blinding as a camera's flash. She sees his remnants everywhere—he is in the coffee shop, he is in line at the grocery store, he is buying gum at a magazine stand she passes on the way to pick up Emma at school. Every time she spots someone with dark hair and olive Italian skin, a wrinkle stealing across his forehead, there he is. And every time she feels for a half second as if _That Year_ never happened, as if the relative simplicity and joy of the years before _That Year_ was still within reach. And then he would turn, and the moment would pass, fading away to the present, sticky and muddy with the everydayness of things.

_That Year_ was years ago, but whenever it was mentioned by one of the six, _That Year_ always came out as a soft growl, as if no one could quite get over the fact that everything had happened all at once.

But last week, on a bright, cloudless Tuesday, Chandler had been there, waiting to cross 59th street, shielding his eyes with a newspaper from the golden yellow glare bouncing off the hoods of passing taxi cabs. She'd been so happy to see him that she'd actually run up to him on the street, surprising him into dropping his newspaper when she'd wrapped her arm around him from the side.

"Jesus Christ!" he'd muttered, his blue eyes popping in surprise and immediately returning her hug in his brisk, on-armed fashion, his fingers molding into her back. "Rachel, Rachel, great to see you," he had said, stepping back and bending to recover his newspaper. He waggled it at her. "Don't you _ever_ do that again," he'd said, mock-threateningly, and tipped her a shadow of a wink. She'd thrown her head back and laughed, what she now recalled, with a jolt of surprise, was her first real laugh in months.

They'd immediately set a lunch date, agreeing that one random meeting in more than a year was insane, since they worked only blocks from each other. They'd agreed that yes, they were idiots for not realizing their error sooner, and yes, they'd missed each other. And so the date was set.

Now, impatiently waiting for the elevator door to open onto the 24th floor and breezing past her always slightly disheveled yet flawlessly organized assistant, Rachel finds the sanctuary of her office.

"Good morning, Mrs. Gellar," chirps her assistant, Sybil, coming through the door after her, and Rachel fights a cringe. Despite her heartbreaking and meticulous eagerness, Sybil's ponytail has already come undone on one side; her frizzy red-brown hair is flopping restlessly into her eyes. "There are new swatches on your desk for the Spring Collection, and your meeting with Mr. Zelner isn't until 3:30."

Rachel tries to smile naturally as Sybil pushes her permanently crooked glasses further up the bridge of her nose, which is somehow the most eager-looking of all her features. "Thanks, Sybil," she says, plucking some files from her briefcase. "And take these folders up to Natasha, will you?" She pauses, and Sybil takes an enthusiastic step forward. "Not the Natasha in human resources, the Natasha who always wears white. Oh, and no bothering me until _after_ my meeting. For _anything_." Sybil nods fervently and, taking the folders from Rachel, leaves her in peace.

Rachel goes straight to the phone, dialing a number by heart.

Three rings and a click, and then a husky, early morning voice answers. "Campaign Management. _This _is Chandler Bing," he says. The familiar sarcastic undulation in his voice makes Rachel grin into the phone's receiver. His office must love him, she thinks; he has just enough tempered sarcasm to fit into the advertising world.

"Chandler, it's me." Rachel pauses, wondering if, after months of painfully little phone conversation, he would know who "me" was. She is sure that in the Bing household, Monica had the sole right to the name, just as she is equally sure that in Monica's head, it was capitalized, just as a proper name should be. Me. So she adds, "It's Rachel. Are we still on for lunch today?"

"Rachel, hi!" Some of his voice's early morning grogginess disappears, though his voice still cracks slightly and Rachel can hear him settle back into his chair.

"Wow, someone's tired this morning."

"Well, _someone_ has to take the train all the way from the 'burbs every morning, you unbelievably lucky Manhattanite" he says, a distinct drollness in his voice.

"So, we're on for lunch, right?"

Chandler laughs. "Of _course_ we're _on_ for lunch. Jesus, I've been looking forward to this all week. Any excuse to not have to walk the walk of shame into the office."

Rachel scratches her nose. "The uh—the 'walk of shame,' Chandler? What did you do, _sleep_ with your lunch?"

"No," comes the reply. "The 'walk of shame' would be me carrying my _tupperware_ lunch past my boss' office … looks like the kind of lunch a mother packs for the kid picked last in dodge ball. Come to think of it, I _was_ the kid picked last in dodge ball." The lowers his voice conspiratorially. "Don't tell Mon, though. My geek-tupperware is my safety guard against anyone stealing the stuff—no one knows it's Waldorf salad and spinach-proscuitto quiche I've got in there."

Rachel laughs. "Ok, so we're on. And we won't go anywhere with Waldorf salad and quiche." Chandler loyally does not laugh at this, but Rachel detects an inhale of air that tells her she has struck a cord of approval. "Want to meet at my office and decide from there? Let's see, what time's good for you?" She glances down at her desk and lets out a mute scream; the thing is buried in swatches, and her calendar was nowhere to be seen.

"Yeah, yeah, sounds great. Let's say 12:15. That good for you?"

"Ummm …" She seizes a handful of swatches and piles them on the floor next to her desk, silently cursing Sybil.

"And Rach, tell your boss this'll be a long lunch. I've got some … some stuff I want to talk to you about." His voice, a moment ago laced with relaxed composure, has now turned too calm, too restrained, too soft for its casualness to be entirely plausible. She stops in her frantic search for the calendar, her hands overflowing with more swatches.

"_Stuff_, Chandler?"

"Uh-huh."

"Yeah, but _what_ stuff? Good stuff? It'd better be good stuff."

There is a short pause, then, "Of course. Stop thinking anyone's _dying_, Rach. I'll tell you at lunch."

"Oh, no, no." Rachel let the swatches fall back onto the desk. "You'll tell me _now_, Bing, or you're buying me lunch." Looking down with a glare, she spots the edge of her desk calendar and tugs.

"You sound a bit busy over there, Rach," says Chandler, seizing his opportunity to not divulge the information. "Do you want to call me back once you find your desk calendar?" He says it with perfect innocence. Rachel narrows her eyes and wheels around, half expecting to find Chandler stepping out from a corner, phone in hand, a knowing smile lighting up his eyes. She looks back down at the calendar in her hands. No meetings until 3:30. 12:15 would be perfect.

"No!" she says, hoping she sounds sufficiently indignant, and adds calmly, "Ok, Chandler, I'll see you at 12:15. And you'll tell me this 'stuff' then, right?"

"With pleasure," he says. "See you. And don't bring your wallet; lunch is on me."

Rachel raises an eyebrow. "My, my, Chandler Bing, you're quite the gentleman. You better not be taking me to Pizza Hut."

"No, no, I prefer the décor of Dominoes. More florescent lighting, better plastic on the chairs, and the checkered floors are endearing."

Shaking her head, Rachel chuckles. "12:15, Chandler. I'll be downstairs." She places the phone down, relishing for a moment in the silence of the office. Glancing to see that her door is closed, she kicks off her shoes under the desk and goes to the window, her stockinged feet making sandpaper sounds on the carpet.

Outside, it has begun to snow, and she looks out the window, a smile spreading onto her face. It falls softly sideways, muting the sounds of traffic below, lending a peace to the air that is rare for Manhattan. She presses her forehead against the glass, hoping that Ross has remembered to bring Emma's hat to school for her. She lets out a soft snort. Of course he's remembered; he no doubt read the weather report days ago.

Snow still has the effect on her that it did when she was a little girl, when she would wake up to find her neighborhood street cloaked in generous heaps of glittering whiteness and she would venture out with Jill in tow, still in their nightgowns, to indulge for a moment in the bright silence of the winter scene, the coldness reaching into her in an almost personal way, her feet leaving perfect footprints behind her. Now, she feels foolish, almost scandalous, to be watching the flakes descend past her window, as if she is involved in some sort of affair. She blushes in spite of herself. Here she is, a successful thirty-five year-old woman with a husband and a beautiful little girl, musing over some simple snowflakes.

From her desk, the phone rings, and Rachel rushes to answer it, and stuffs her feet into the shoes she abandoned under her desk.

"Rachel?" comes her assistant's nervous voice.

"Sybil, I didn't really want to be disturbed. If Natasha's not there, just …"

"It's not about Natasha. It's Dr. Gellar; he's left a … he's left a message."

"A _message_?" she asks, frowning. "Couldn't you have patched him through?" She eyes her cell phone sitting on and fully charged on the desk. There are no missed calls, no messages received.

There is an uncomfortable pause, and then, "Well, he said to just give you the message. He didn't want to—"

"Let me guess, _bother_ me?" Rachel interjects dryly. She leans back in her chair and looks at her nails absentmindedly, somehow getting a grim enjoyment out of grilling Sybil.

"Well," squeaks her assistant, "that's what he said …" Her voice trails indelicately away.

"Sybil?"

"Yes …?" comes another squeak.

"Well?" says Rachel impatiently. "What's the message?"

Sybil takes a too-big gulp of breath and says hurriedly, as if it would be less painful to say everything all at once, "He said to apologize that he can't make dinner tonight. He has an evening meeting with the paleontology department, says it will probably run late. He wants to reschedule for tomorrow night, same time, same place. Blue Hill, 8:00. He's already changed the reservation and the cancelled the sitter for Emma." She stops abruptly and takes a recovering breath.

"And who will be taking Emma tomorrow night?"

There is a brief pause, and Rachel imagines Sybil frantically rereading her notes. "Someone named Phoebe."

"Well," sighs Rachel, now checking the nail polish on her left hand, "he's certainly taken care of everything. Can you call him back; tell him that'll be fine. And Sybil," she says airily, "please inform my husband that I have a cell phone for a reason. There's no reason why you have to be subjected to a husband and wife go-between."

"Yes, Rachel," says Sybil, and Rachel clicks the line dead, her grim enjoyment evaporated. As she pulls the fresh batch of swatches towards her, she gazes once again outside. Her window is white-washed with the falling snow, now swirling determinedly against the pane. Tearing her gaze away, she settles herself more comfortably into her chair and flips slowly through the swatches, making notations in the file, her mind still dwelling bitterly on Ross.

Her cell phone still sits mockingly on the corner of her desk, defiantly devoid of messages until she reaches for it, staring for a moment at its grey-white screen, and hurls it at the potted plant across the room. It lands with a satisfying thud and a rustle of leaves, leaving the room is silent once again and Rachel breathing heavily at her desk.

It is nearly 12:15 when Rachel rises from her chair, slipping on her coat and checking her purse for her gloves and scarf before finally giving in and shuffling towards the potted plant. She peers into the leafy foliage, its greenness bright and its leaves wetly pungent up close, and spots her phone nestled among clumps of rich potting soil. She reaches for it, feeling its weight cool against her palm, and brushes the dirt from its crevices. Then, quite suddenly, it rings. The name "Ross" appears in block letters on the tiny screen. Puffing air out of her mouth she flips the phone open, answering it with a hollow, "Yes, Ross?"

"Hi, Rach," he answers, completely non-plussed. "I was wondering since we're missing dinner if you'd like to have a late lunch today. I think I've just got enough room in my schedule. Think you can make it downtown?" His voice is breezy, light, and it takes her a moment to realize that he doesn't know she's upset with him. She wonders briefly if Sybil had the guts this morning to call him back. She cracks open her office door, spotting Sybil at her desk. Her assistant is already eating her lunch, flipping through a fashion magazine with almost indecent enthusiasm.

"Ross," says Rachel, putting on her best brisk voice and watching as Sybil whipped around unnecessarily fast in her chair, her back straightening in opposition to her even more disheveled ponytail. "You did happen to get Sybil's message this morning, didn't you? Dinner tomorrow is just fine."

"What? Oh, yeah, yeah. But I though that, you know, if you're free and well, hungry, we could grab something now." Ross says as Rachel watches Sybil nod fervently, one cheek bulging with a bite of sandwich.

"Ross, what's up," she says, closing the door again and leaning against it. "You _never_ ask me to lunch. You have _class_ during lunch."

"Not every day. Not today. I thought—I thought it'd be nice."

"I'm sorry, I can't, Ross. I have a lunch date with Chandler in about … huh, about two minutes ago," she says, and she can feel the anger that welled up insider her all morning start to evaporate.

"Oh, with Chandler?" comes the soft, almost pained reply. He pauses, and Rachel could feel her cheeks growing hot. It'd be so easy to invite him along; the words are on the tip of her tongue, and he is clearly expecting them. Slightly surprised at herself, she bites them back.

"Well," says Ross, "that'll be nice. I guess, um, I'll see you late tonight, then. Have … have a good lunch, and say hello to Chandler for me. I guess I'll see him at Thanksgiving, anyway."

"Right," is all she can manage to say, her cheeks growing hotter still. "See you, Ross."

"Yeah, bye, Rach. Love you." The line goes dead, leaving guilt to bubble unexplained in Rachel's stomach.

She turns, opening the door and passing Sybil, rushing to the elevator. Once inside, she punches the first floor button repeatedly, and the sleek, stainless steel doors close in front of her, leaving her to stare at her blurred reflection divided cleanly in two. Tears start to wind their way down her cheeks despite her best efforts at composure. _Only Ross_, she thinks. _Only Ross can make me go from frustrated to bitter to guilty in the space of one morning_. The doors open, revealing an expectant Chandler clad in a long winter coat waiting by the vestibule door. Snow dusts his shoulders and his hair glints in the white light pouring in the window behind him.

He spots her and smiles broadly. Rachel's heels click unsteadily as she walks towards him, his arms open for a greeting and she lets herself be enveloped, breathing in the cold radiating off his jacket. "Rach! Good to see you! You didn't bring your wallet, did ya?" He laughs and steps back, for the first time looking straight into her face. His expression changes instantly, faint lines spreading themselves across his forehead and around the corners of his eyes. "Rach? What's wrong?"

"I'm fine. It's just … just Ross stuff," she says, wiping her eyes on her sleeve and letting Chandler lead the way out the vestibule door and into the swirling snow. "It's silly. Nothing I'm not used to, or for that matter anything I can put my finger on. I can't even explain why I'm upset; it'd just sound stupid." she says, chuckling to herself.

"I'm sure it wouldn't sound stupid," says Chandler, something uncharacteristically soft in his voice, as if he were remembering something personal. Rachel turns to him, undisguised curiosity stealing over her features. She suddenly realizes she's cold, and digs into her purse for her scarf and gloves.

"Where are you taking me?" she asks.

Chandler winks and tugs on her coat sleeve, leading her east along 60th Street so that the snow is now blowing directly into their eyes. "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies," he says, his voice oddly muffled from having tucked his chin down into his scarf. Rachel laughs in spite of herself, slipping slightly on a patch of trodden, already-compact snow.

Ten minutes later they are ducking into a brownstone with a painted black storefront, the letters "Serendipity 3" painted in thin, neat letters above the doorway. Glancing up, Rachel gasps softly. "Oh, Chandler, I've always wanted to come here …" She smiles brightly as he tugs the door open, a faint blush tingeing the patches of his cheeks that are visible above the rim of his scarf.

"Well, it's no Domino's," he says, his voice still comically dampened by the scarf. Rachel laughs, punching him lightly in the chest before stepping inside.

"I think this'll do," she says.

Warmth rushes at them from the comfortably quaint room before them. Rosy reds and rich browns seem to usher them through the door, the smell of cinnamon reaching their noses, the door swinging shut behind them, leaving the snow to fly frustratedly at the windows, unable to get inside. The restaurant is nearly full, couples and groups of friends and the odd tourist grouped haphazardly around tables, mugs of coffee between them.

Shedding their coats, they sink gratefully into squashy chintz chairs at the back of the room, Rachel running her hands over the dark mahogany of the table between them. From a distance, they are everything old friends should be, an easy comfort settling itself between them as they peruse the menu, ordering warm winter soups, crusty bread, and steaming mugs of whipped cream-topped hot chocolate.

Chandler, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of bread, watches Rachel stir her hot chocolate idly with a cinnamon stick, her face more contentedly relaxed than he can remember seeing it in months. He thinks back to her tears in the lobby of the Ralph Lauren building, wondering what had been too silly for her to tell him.

"So Chandler," she says, catching some whipped cream on the tip of her finger and sticking it into her mouth. "I'm here and I'm ready. What was this _stuff_ you had to tell me?" She eyes him across the table, watching as he makes a show of setting his spoon down and wiping his mouth with his napkin.

"Well," he said slowly, never taking his eyes off her face, "Joey will be joining us for Thanksgiving this year. He comes in tonight, on the redeye from LAX."

Rachel stops dead, another whipped creamed finger halfway to her mouth, her gold-flecked eyes wide, and whispers one word: "Joey?"

_End of Chapter One. Please be so kind as to leave a review. _


	3. A Pirate\'s Feathered Hat

**Too Simple a Word**

**Chapter 2: Harmlessness and a Pirate's Feathered Hat**

**_November, 2006. On the eve of Joey's return for Thanksgiving, Rachel finds herself on the edge of the forbidden. She must decide whether to lengthen her stolen moment, or return to her half-life._**

**Note: Please be aware of dates attached to chapters; the prologue takes place much later than the rest of the chapters.**

"_People know what they do, they know why the do it, but what they don't know is what what they do does." M. Foucault_

"_What a ship is, what the Black Pearl really is … is freedom." Captain Jack Sparrow_, Pirates of the Caribbean

"Yes, Joey," says Chandler, finally taking his gaze off of Rachel just long enough to dip his own finger in the whipped cream topping his hot chocolate. Sticking it in his mouth, he glances back up at her, her mouth opening wordlessly, her finger still hovering in mid-air. "It's one of the perks of being a Hollywood up-and-comer, I guess—you get to demand where you spend your time." He sighs. "Rach, it's not just Thanksgiving. He's thinking of moving back to New York. Indefinitely."

"In- Indefinitely? _Indefinitely_." Her voice feels distant, hopeful.

"Yes, indefinitely. He's thinking about it," he says firmly, like he can tell Rachel is as of yet unbelieving. She stares at the space just to the left of Chandler's right hand, at curve of his spoon lying on the table. It makes crisp, crescent-shaped shadow on the wood beneath it; she finds she cannot yet look him in the eye. Almost absentmindedly, she finally sticks her finger in her mouth and sucks on it, letting the sweetness of the cream fill her mouth. "Listen, Rach, he didn't want me to tell anybody. He sort of wanted it to be a surprise."

"A surprise?" she blurts out, and Chandler's mouth slides into an ironic smile.

"You can't expect him to hate secrets forever, can you?" he says, chuckling, and leans forward to prop his elbows on the edge of the table. He surveys Rachel over folded hands. "Or maybe he just hates other people's secrets and not his own."

Rachel blinks. Was he referring to her, or to himself? She bends to take a sip of hot chocolate, pressing her lips against the rim of the cup to blow across its surface, biding her time.

"Thanks for telling me," she says, finally looking into Chandler's eyes and to her surprise reading sorrow there, for the moment unmasked. It is then that it hits her that this, too, is Chandler. For the moment, it is his sorrow that makes him real.

"I couldn't _not_ tell you, Rach. You—you took his leaving worse than anyone."

"Worse than you?" she asks, before she is able to stop herself. He pauses and shrugs, looking down, and runs his finger along the rim of his near-empty soup bowl.

"Maybe. But maybe not," he says quietly, and again Rachel has the distinct impression that his comment is more personal than meant purely for her comfort. "It was the final straw," he says after a moment. "It was the final change in a string of changes that happened that year."

"_That year_," Rachel says, watching the progress of his finger running along the edge of his bowl. She reaches out and catches his wrist, stilling him. She squeezes it and he looks up. "Hey, I can't believe he's really coming." She is smiling.

"Do you want to come with me to JFK?" he asks, and Rachel draws her hand away, settling back into her chair, and gives a slight sigh.

"I can't. Ross has a late meeting tonight and I'll have to be home with Emma."

"Can't Molly stay later? What about Phoebe, can't she stay over?" he says, and watches as Rachel weighs this carefully, a slight frown on her face. "She and Mike are talking about having a baby, you know. It could be practice." He rolls his eyes; "practice" is something Monica would do, something Ross would do, not Phoebe. Phoebe would take the plunge. She would take Emma because she _likes_ Emma, not for something as mundane and conventional as practice.

"No. I—I can't, Chandler," she says, and for a split second she thinks she may start to cry again. Instead, she simply repeats, "I just can't. Not with . . . well, not with things the way they are."

"But you're the only one," he says. "You're the only one that hasn't seen him. Mon and me, Phoebe and Mike … Christ, even Ross with his UCLA paleontology lecture, we've all seen him in LA. God, I _wish_ I could have seen Joey's face when Ross invited him to that lecture." Chandler gives a short bark of laughter. "But Rach, he's always wanted you to visit—"

"It's not that I didn't want to, Chandler! It's not that I don't want to go to JFK." she says, her temper flaring so suddenly that it frightens her into silence. A woman at the table beside them is startled into slopping coffee down her front. After a moment, Rachel continues, forcing her voice into calm. "Listen, Mon has her babies and her beloved chef work, Ross has the little family he's dreamed of since the ninth grade, Phoebe's always had her music and now has Mike to boot. . . . You're the only one, the only one, Chandler, who lost something. I don't want to yell at you for that."

"We all lost Joey, Rach."

"Yes, we all lost somebody, but only you and I lost some_thing_. Don't pretend we're as happy as the others. I know you're not," she says, and adds, "You live in the _'burbs_, Chandler. You grew up in the 'burbs—you have a general _distain_ for the 'burbs." Chandler straightens, reddening; she can tell he is aware for the first time that she can see right through him and his grave dislike of Westchester. She knows—somehow the lawns are too emerald green, the clean, two- and three-storied houses too solidly _there_ and too beige, too white, too light blue, the only color variances on their block … the neighbors are too perky (or perhaps too much like his mother) than he can sometimes take, the driveways too jammed with SUVs and strollers equipped with handle grips and shocks to make jogging easier.

She imagines that it is on the evening train home that this usually hits him, that he has left the city and longs only for return, for the pulsing, beating life of it. He'll wish for it to take hold of him mercilessly, to shake him and stir him and pull his heart out. He'll wish to wake up and not know exactly what he'll see waiting for him on the corner of 6th and West 4th as he waits for the bus uptown… to not know if the sax player that perpetually resides there will play "Blue Skies" or "Mrs. Otis Regrets," or if he will skip them entirely and play something unrecognizable, something created right there on the corner, his felt hat resting on top of his saxophone case, hoping you, too, will recognize the agility of his fingers as brilliance. There are days, thinks Rachel, when he probably lives for the seven blocks he has to walk between Grand Central and his office building, navigating the determined strut virtually all New Yorkers learn to adopt on workday mornings. She can see it in the reddening of his face, hear it in the words he does not say. It will be then that he feels both robbed and scandalously fortunate, to have both Monica and the twins as well as a taste of his old life in the city, until he realizes that he can not simultaneously have both.

"I love Erica and Jack," says Chandler fiercely, returning to himself. "I love Monica."

"And I love Emma and Ross." Rachel counters. It's true; she thinks of them constantly. She can see them perfectly in her mind's eye, Ross's dark eyelashes resting heavy against his cheek in sleep, the exact curl of Emma's hair when she bounces out the door in the morning for preschool. "But something changed when Joey left."

Chandler smiles slightly, uncharacteristically devoid of a quip. "Everything changed when Joey left," he says, and Rachel knows he feels it too. She knows he misses the bursting, billowing joy Joey's presence in the group had always afforded. She knows he misses him, but like her, he also misses the idea of him, of the life they all shared before they scattered. She knows he misses the six of them in Central Perk, talking or not talking, laughing or not laughing, but always reveling in the squashy armchairs, in the scents of coffee and cinnamon muffins, in the worn and chipped brick of the walls of this little nook of the city … always reveling in the comfort of the presence of the other five. She knows this without a breath of doubt, just as sure as she knows that she will not go to the airport, that she will wait for Ross to come home, that she and Emma will go through the routine of dinner, of brushing teeth, of bedtime story.

She knows she will be everything Emma and Ross want her to be. She will not chirp the news of Joey's return with giddy abandon as she longs to do, but state it plainly, with measured excitement. And she knows Chandler will do the same. He will return on the evening train. He will have dinner with his family and laugh as Monica tells him what cute thing Erica did that day. For this reason they are singular, unique. They have agreed to be harmless.

**--page break--**

Later that night, Rachel plays out the role she imagined at lunch with Chandler.

"And _then_," says Emma emphatically, "Molly found branches for the arms and we stuck them in and it looked like a _real _snowman."

She is glowing, and bright pink from her bath, her dark hair freshly brushed and starting to curl various unpredictable ways at the ends. He skin is still hot from the bathwater when Rachel frees her from her towel and exchanges it for her pajamas. Emma looks down.

"Which ones are these?"

"They're your fairy jammies, honey," says Rachel, and Emma pulls a face ripe with distaste.

"May I please have my Harry Potter ones instead?" she asks, and Rachel can't help but wonder at her politeness. A three-year-old with etiquette; this must be Ross' doing. Rachel goes to the dresser and pulls out the requested pajamas as Emma launches again into her story. "And _then_," she says, brushing a piece of hair out of her face with a practiced air of impatience, "we found rocks for the eyes and Molly had a carrot for the nose, and it looked even _more_ like a real snowman! But then we were getting too cold and so we came home for hot chocolate." She sighs. "Can I go back to the park tomorrow? _Pleeeeeease_!" She clasps her hands together for added effect, and Rachel laughs.

She can picture Emma perfectly in Washington Square Park, one of the many patches of green that pepper Manhattan, the stubby trees heaped with snow and the fountain's frozen water starting to crack, children's shrieks bursting in the air and adults' laughter following. She imagines Emma, her mittens caked with snow, her nose red and shining, reaching up to stick the carrot where the nose should be. It is off-center, childlike. It is precious, and Molly, sensing this, does not correct it, but applauds and lets her laugh flow skyward. Emma, emboldened, does the same.

"No, silly. Tomorrow you have preschool. And you know what? You'll get to see Aunt Monica and Uncle Chandler the day after that, on Thanksgiving, and they have an even better place to make a snowman" she says. Emma lights up, her eyes positively popping, and Rachel has the sudden urge to grab the little girl sitting cross-legged on the bed in front of her and tickle her until she cries from her laughter. She longs to transport her, to make her breathless, to squeeze her and never let go. Here she is, her Emma, her angel of a daughter, the one she loves with singular ferociousness. Here are her big brown eyes under their lashes and here are her Harry Potter pajamas. Rachel hesitates, then reaches out and pinches her nose softly. "But you know what you can do?"

"What?" Emma giggles from the pinch.

"You can help me make brownies for Daddy before he comes home. Do you think you can help me make brownies?"

The girl is momentarily confused; over the years, Rachel has made a point of avoiding the kitchen at all costs. "Why are you making brownies for Daddy?"

"Because, honey," she says with perfect motherly indulgence, "that's what mommies do. They make brownies for Daddy."

"Oh."

"And," adds Rachel, "it's the perfect excuse for eating brownie batter off a spoon. You want to do that?"

"Yes!" she exclaims, delighted, her confusion forgotten, and positively bounces off the bed. Rachel finds that the moment has passed; her daughter is, in fact, just a little girl who wants to lick chocolate off a spoon.

She follows her daughter into the kitchen, pondering what she had just said. _Because that's what mommies do. They make brownies for Daddy._ She hadn't meant to say it, really. It was a slip of the tongue. But it must be true, mustn't it? If she could settle on a reason why she married Ross, at this moment, that would be it. To make him brownies. The thought leaves her short of breath; she really is harmless. She's the type of woman gives her daughter a bath, who makes brownies for her husband.

**--page break--**

Rachel sighs, a short, impatient sort of sigh that catches slightly at the back of the throat. It is a sigh that feigns more impatience than she actually feels. She stands beside the kitchen sink, baking paraphernalia spread out before her as if she is holding court. Emma stands beside her on a stool, the top of her dark head reaching Rachel's elbow, her nose just level with the countertop.

"What, Mommy?" she asks, eyebrows knitted.

Rachel taps the box she holds in her hand. It is brownie mix, the front of which shows thick, fluffy, steaming brownies, the words "Family Style" curl lavishly around them in a generous shade of purple. Rachel lets her eye flick over the recipe one more time. Four eggs, ¼ cup vegetable oil, and the brownie mix.

"It calls for four eggs. Do you remember how many four is, Emma?"

There is a half-moment of silence, and then Emma raises four fingers up in front of her face. Rachel smiles and pokes her in the stomach. "You're a smartie," she says, and Emma grins, wiggling her fingers. "Ok, so we need four eggs, but look how many we have." She holds the carton of eggs down to Emma's level, and Emma peers at them seriously.

"Three!" she exclaims, and looks up a Rachel for approval. Rachel nods. "But Mommy," Emma says, suddenly worried, "we need four. How can we make Daddy brownies if we only have _three_ eggs?" She looks almost terrified that the brownies will be a failure.

Rachel can't help but think how successful she is, this little girl standing beside her in her Harry Potter pajamas who knows that they don't have enough eggs. How fortunate, how blessed to be exactly who she is, to look and to know without question that three eggs simply will not do. Rachel herself feels that she is a failure; she knows that now. She has failed just as Emma has prospered. Her certainty is never so steady, so unquestioning.

"We'll just have to buy more eggs, that's all," says Rachel.

She does not mind leaving the apartment and running to buy eggs at the Korean grocer down the street. In fact, she's practically humming to herself as she settles Emma on the couch with pillows and a mug of warm milk, the phone at her elbow in case Rachel needs to come running home before eggs can be bought, before the potential brownie disaster can be rectified. She practically itching to stray away down the block. She's already remembering the happenings of the day as if she were alone, striding purposefully down Christopher Street in the snow.

She goes. She remembers. She is surprised to find herself blushing.

Because after all that—after having gone to her meeting with Mr. Zelner and making competent and insightful input, after having completed her day at work with minimal annoyance at Sybil, after having given Emma her bath, after having read a recipe off the back of a brownie box—after all that, here she is, blushing on a snow-covered city street like a schoolgirl. Here she is, pink with pleasure at the memory of lunch. With Chandler. Of all people.

Because she won't, and perhaps can't, fool herself. She realizes it now. It wasn't because she is harmless that she's making Ross brownies; it is because she is attempting to regain her harmlessness. Yes, yes, that must be it. Chandler is the reason she's making Ross "Family Style" brownies. Chandler is the reason she has left Emma alone in front of the Discovery Channel watching some show about frogs (or was it toads?) while she trudges through the freshly fallen snow to the Korean grocer at the end of Christopher Street. Her weekend go-to place for freshly squeezed orange juice has, she realizes as a taxi arcs slowly around her, wary of slipperiness, suddenly become the saving grace of her marriage. Brownies. Not that, she thinks, what happened was all that earth-shattering. No, not at all, at least not on the surface. It was exhilarating, yes, and perhaps tainted with tinge of—who is she to deny it—desire, but surely not earth-shattering enough to merit a full-fledged, triple layered, double fudge, twice-iced cake. Brownies will do. And yet still here she is blushing at the memory.

It was after lunch, after the news to end all news had been delivered, and Rachel could feel the shift. Joey was coming home. Joey, the television up-and-comer. Joey, the lost friend who now seemed to matter more than all the others. Joey, the angel who would defend her with blazing sword and fiery wings. And who was she, exactly? What had she made for herself in his absence? She was a wife, of course, and a mother, too, who had a solid job . . . But perhaps she was asking too much of herself . . . a touch of brilliance, a touch of success beyond the ordinary was undoubtedly too much to ask. A husband and daughter were enough. Of course they were. Who needs what she could have chosen—who needs Paris, who needs to be wildly successful, who needs the spectacular plunge into the unknown? Who needs—does she dare say it—freedom? That freedom was Joey's. He was the one who plunged, the one who leaped into his future while she took baby steps into hers.

Ah yes, _freedom_, she thinks, and is again pulled back to the events of the _après-mangez_. She remembers it perfectly, and somehow she knows she will keep this tiny kernel of a memory locked safe inside forever, only to unlock it at will in times both brighter and darker than today. She knows he will, too.

They had finished lunch, and they had exited with as much dignity they could muster given the heavy words that had flown between them. Chandler stops to pester her one more time about Joey.

"Ok, this is my last attempt. Come to the airport."

"We've been through this."

"Ok, how 'bout this. _Please_ come?"

"No."

"_Pretty_ please? With _sugar_ on top?"

"I can't."

"You _won't_," he corrects her. "You know, under all that good girl veneer, I've always thought you had a wee bit of a rebel in you. I bet if I were to rip that coat off you, you'd still have some sort of pirate regalia on underneath. Under that pressed collared shirt of yours," he gives a smirk, and gestures to his own nearly identical shirt, "top sails, feathered hat and an eye patch would all come spilling out."

He chuckles, but Rachel looks at him, eyes riveted, staring wide-eyed. She has stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Something about what has passed between them has caused her to stand stock still while the snow flies at odd angles around them. And quite suddenly, there it is. Rachel, pirate-woman. "So do it," she says, voice a rough whisper.

"Do what?" He's suddenly serious.

"Rip," she states, eyes still boring into him, daring, challenging.

"I'm not going to _rip_ your . . . W-we're on the Upper East Side . . ." His voice trails away; whether stolen from the wind or not it is hard to tell.

She gives her head a tilt, nonchalant. Her eyes are clear. "_Pirate_," she says, and shrugs, a slyer smile than usual playing on her lips.

A moment passes in which neither one of them do anything. Then, there is suddenly a hand on the rise of her hip, and another running along the buttons of her coat. Rachel's knees almost buckle but she looks straight ahead, and the eyes in front of her are at once crazed, at once disbelieving, never leaving her own eyes. Snow swirls around them, blinding them from the rest of the world. It is all white meaningless, snow-laden fog, and echoes of other people's existence. Their breath rises in between them, mingling. There is a rush of cold air against her stomach, at once followed by a bare hand, and she sucks in a breath at both sensations. She closes her eyes, and suddenly, without warning, she feels she is no longer on a New York City sidewalk just days before Thanksgiving, but rather somewhere else altogether. The deck of a ship seems to sway creakily underfoot, and she can almost smell a deliciously sharp, salty, weathered something that smells like the sea. The leather straps of the purse she clutches in her hand are no longer straps of a purse, but the wooden helm of a ship, worn and smooth from touch and the spray of the sea. Faintly, beyond the snowflakes swirling around her, she can hear the snap of sails and the rubber-band rasp of ropes growing taunt. She feels it, briefly, here on the deck of a ship, here on a corner on the Upper East Side. She feels freedom.

She throws her head slightly back, breathing in deeply. And then there's another hand, this one slithering around her side to her back, pressing, steadying her as she sways slightly on her imagined sea, and now the wind cannot reach the skin along her midriff. She steadies, the hand on her relaxes, and she opens her eyes. Chandler is still standing before her, his hands disappearing inside her coat, his eyes a clear, Caribbean blue. She can feel his heat.

"Did you find top sails?" she asks, again swaying slightly, though she doesn't quite know if it's because of her imagined sea or the hands that have slithered around her back and are now trying not to play with the shirt that is tucked into the band of her slacks.

"Yes," he says, blinking at this Rachel-turned-pirate. "And your feather hat is _enormous_, really."

"I'm still not coming to the airport."

"Hey, _you're_ the pirate. Who am I to argue?"

And she knows now, pulling the door to the Korean grocer open as a bell tinkles to announce her entrance, that she's proved something to him, to herself. After all these years, she still has the longing to be free, and this, if nothing else, is something.

And so she kicks the snow off her boots and buys her brownie mix.

**--page break--**

It is nearly an hour later. Emma is in bed, snuggled deep under the covers and muttering about snowmen with carrot noses and Thanksgiving. The apartment is nearly silent, and the rich, homey smell of freshly baked brownies fills every nook and every corner. As for the brownies themselves, they are cut into squares and piled (Rachel would like to think artistically) into a shallow, napkin-lined basket that would make even Monica smile indulgently. The baking dish has been washed and dried, the crumbs on the counter have been wiped away. Rachel realizes she has done everything perfectly. More perfectly, in fact, than she had expected. And for this, she feels a failure. Her inner pirate is cringing. She feels a failure for making her husband brownies, for successfully putting Emma to bed without the usual whining. She feels a failure for secretly enjoying these motherly and wifely duties, for reveling in their simplicity, and for doing them well. As well as someone like Monica, with all the world's motherly instincts and longings, would have done.

Outside, snow continues to fall, sliding past the windows in tiny flakes that the wind stirs into flurries. A branch taps against the window pane, the only sound Rachel can hear over the ticking of the oven clock and her daughter's quiet mutterings.

There is the sound of a key being inserted into a lock, and a click. The door swings open to reveal a tired Ross.

"Hey, sweetie," he says, setting his briefcase down by the door and crossing to give Rachel a kiss on the lips. His coat emanates the cold brought in from outside, his hat is dusted with snowflakes, but his mouth, as always, is warm and smooth.

"How was your meeting? It sure ran late."

"_Way_ too late," he agrees, shrugging off his coat and hat, placing them in the correct places in the closet. Rachel has the urge to tell him to leave them scattered haphazardly on the couch, so at least one thing in this apartment would be blissfully out of order.

Instead, she says, "Emma and I made some brownies. Want one?"

"Oh, did you?" he says, without a trace of surprise. It's as if he seems to know they were due to him. "Sure, I'll take one." Rachel is overly aware of her hand reaching for the basket, offering him a brownie. He takes one, popping it into his mouth, chewing with relish. "Oh my God, these are fantastic." He takes another, and gives Rachel's hip an affectionate squeeze. She can't help but think that Chandler's squeeze in the exact same place was altogether different. Ross finishes the brownie. This is how it should be, she thinks. This is the set-up. Ross coming home to brownies, to his wife and daughter. She wants to cry, to run.

"Delicious." He winks. "Ok, I'm gonna take a shower. I'm chilled to the bone from walking home in that snow."

She hears herself say, "Alright. Yeah, it's freezing out there today. You know, you should come by Ralph Lauren, we've got really great coats in this season."

"Oh, perfect. Maybe I'll drop by tomorrow before we hit the restaurant?"

Oh right, the restaurant. "Good. Now go get in that shower. You're still shivering."

He ambles down the hall, leaving Rachel to listen to the tapping of the branch against the window. And suddenly, it's not at all enough. Not nearly enough to have made the brownies and to regret their perfection. She can hear the shower turn on.

Without thinking properly, she has pulled her own coat out of the orderly closet, found her own hat and gloves, pulled on her own boots. Without thinking, she is at the door of the apartment, she is tugging it shut behind her. And then, breathing shallowly, her cheeks tinged a deep rose, she is flying down the stairwell with indecent speed, as if she will suffocate if she is in the same room as the brownies for another second. Her feet hit the pavement and she is still running, a fantastic figure, her hair whipping behind her, one moment lit by a streetlamp, the other obscured in darkness. The cold rushes at her, pierces her, carries her down the sidewalk as streetlamps cast their lemon light into shadows grey with snow. She is desperate for this, the freedom and obscurity of the street. For this she loves helplessly the snow, the streetlamps, the way this street ends and another begins. She loves the piercing cold.

She slows after a number of blocks, her breathing labored. Her hair whips around her face and snowflakes settling themselves in the flyaway strands. Several blocks over, her apartment window is lit from within, spilling yellow light onto a tree branch tapping against the window. She will not be gone long, she thinks, catching her breath. Ross will not have to know. He will not have to know she made the brownies because of Joey's return, because of Chandler, because of a feathered pirate hat … because she both is and is not the wife she should be. He will not have to know she escaped into lemon streetlamps and grey snow shadows.

He will not know she had needed to escape.

She turns, she walks on. Again she can feel a boat sway creakily underfoot and the wooden smoothness of a ship's helm under her hand.

**Note: The Rachel-as-pirate scheme, incidentally, was the driving image for this entire story. I thought it'd make for an interesting and truthful alter ego of sorts. And her line "_pirate_" in response to Chandler's trailing off is stolen (or commandeered, if you will) directly from Johnny Depp's performance in _Pirates of the Caribbean_. Her notion of equating freedom with a ship is also taken from his character. Must give credit where credit is due. **

**Please leave a review! Huge, enormous thanks for reading, by the way. Epilogue will be up shortly. I swear it on pain of death. **


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